The medic is built upon 3 key components which are all equally important.

1. Communication
2. Healing
3. Teamwork

This may sound very cliche but it is the honest truth. Teamwork and communication are the fundamentals of this game and is very present in the medic. In fact, it is the most present. When first playing the medic you noticed you have 3 weapons. A syringe gun, a medigun, and a bonesaw. You notice from other medics that the medigun heals players, the syringe gun fires needles to defeat enemies, and the bonesaw is your melee weapon. You perhaps decided on which weapon is the most important. The medigun right? Wrong! The microphone which you must have next to your keyboard is most important!

As a medic you do not need to worry about killing foes constantly or aiming consistently but you simply need to heal others. This gives you the ability to watch for other activity around you and you can report to other players of what you see.

This guide will go over how to communicate properly, be a true leader, and use your weapons and medigun correctly.

As a medic, you heal. You are very important since the other classes get hurt constantly. When not healing injured teamates you can buff them to 150% of their normal health. To make playing the class more enjoyable, select Options from the main TF2 menu, then click the Multiplayer tab, click Advanced... and check Medigun continues healing without holding down fire button. Thus, when you want to heal someone, just click them once and the medigun will automatically lock-on and continue healing so long as it's distance and line of sight limits are not broken. If you wish to stop healing, simply click again (on your current patient or another one).

Since you can not heal yourself directly, make sure you know where the nearest resupply and health kits are. Communicate with your team so they do not take it and in reward you heal them. This is very important.

Unless you are forced to defend yourself, you should always be preparing your ÜberCharge. Find someone nearby and heal him, whether he is damaged or not. Your ÜberCharge meter will fill up (albeit more slowly) even while healing a team-mate with full health.

Do not just heal one class. And don't run into any dangerous areas. As a medic, you are very important to stay alive. Keep a safe distance and let other classes retreat to you if they need to. When you do run into dangerous areas, keep a safe distance away from the person you are healing. And make sure to jump and dodge bullets.

Once locked on with your Medigun, it doesn't matter what direction you face, so turn around1# frequently to watch for Spies, as Medics are one of their highest priority targets.

It is important to try and stay out of sight when playing Medic. One of the biggest differences2 between playing the Medic well and just playing the Medic is the ability to know where enemies are and to stay out of their sight while still healing your fellow team mates. Corners work well for this, and crouching helps to make you a smaller target which makes you harder to hit.

You will find many enemy players will often ignore healing targets and instead focus on trying to kill you first. It is important to realize when you are being singled out and act accordingly -- remember if your heal targets are not under serious fire themselves, you don't necessarily need continue healing them. A good medic can use his own priority target status against enemies by leading them on wild goose chases or fighting back unexpectedly. Advanced medic play is often a question of priorities, and in the vast majority of situations, the number one priority of a medic is to stay alive as long as possible or at least until an Übercharge.

Communicate with the person you are healing about upcoming dangers and enemy Spies, as they are your lifeline and may not see enemies coming up from the side or behind. A quick shout may make all the difference and preserve your ÜberCharge meter. A medic is all about communication.

Inform your team mate when you have your ÜberCharge ready. Even though there is a sound that plays in the game, they may not notice it. A lot of the time your Medigun target will tell you when they are ready for you to use it, otherwise use your best judgment.When it comes to an ÜberCharge, make sure you know who's making the decisions. Ask your Medigun target if they will call it or if you should deploy it at a time of your choosing. If they don't respond when you ask them, then you should assume that it is up to you.

When capturing a control point that is being contested you don't have to be the one standing on it. Duck behind an obstruction and heal your allies that are capping. Reserve the option to hop on if there is no enemy threat.

Use the Bone Saw sparingly, at point-blank range. Melee kills are always a load of fun, and melee weapons have taken quite a boost in power since the Team Fortress Classic (TFC) crowbar, but don't get cocky. Save your Bone Saw for stealthy strikes from behind, or if your attacker is right next to you and retreating isn't an option. Otherwise, you're usually better off healing another teammate and letting them finish the job for you instead.

Use the Syringe Gun for distanced shots. As the name implies, the Syringe Gun fires hypodermic needles. It is not the most powerful weapon in TF2, but it is often underestimated by most players. An experienced player can be lethal with the Syringe Gun in his or her hands.

Don't forget about healing other Medics, too! This is one point that most Medics tend to forget while on the front line. Medics slowly regenerate their health over time, but not fast enough to be useful during battle. Good Medics should look out for one another. If you are hurt, don't be afraid to call for a medic like everyone else. Most of the time, it's Colleagues Before Comrades. Healing another Medic on your team to save his life will ensure that he continues to heal, and keep building his Ubercharge up.

Set your priorities. Lots of players like to shout for a Medic for the sake of getting your attention to come keep them healeddespite having full health. While it's good to keep your more vocal teammates buffed, please make sure that you keep everyone else alive, too.

It helps to communicate your intentions to your team. The built-in voice comm is invaluable for this, so be sure to use it if you have a working microphone. If you plan to Ubercharge the nearest Pyro while you have been healing a Demoman, let them know, so that he doesn't run to his death.

If you are paranoid about encountering a Spy (as a medic you should constantly be paranoid by anything and everything), the most effective way to "Spy check" is to walk into that player. If you pass through that player, then he is not a Spy, and is on your team. If that the player blocks you, then he is a Spy. Also note that disguised spies cannot have a health bar that is in the red. Therefore anyone with a red health symbol is safe to heal.

So you've managed to survive long enough to fill that shiny Ubercharge bar; now, who should you use it on? This depends almost entirely on the situation, but cases where a Sniper, Spy, Scout, or Medic are your best bet are very uncommon. The targets you're most likely to want to use your Ubers on are typically Pyros (for offensive pushes); followed by Heavies (for defense); Demomen (using stickies to take out multiple sentry guns is safer than using an Uber on a Heavy); and Soldier (less desirable because of their reload time, but still pretty damaging); followed by Engineers (sometimes it's the only way to prevent a crucial sentry gun from going down). Use your best judgment to determine which class can best make use of your Ubercharge in the current circumstances.

It is okay to use your uber for defense rather than offense. Many medics and their partners think the opposite that it is better to uber to run into action knowing it won't do much except get themselves killed after the 8 seconds. It is better in these situations to use your uber to retreat. It is more valuable to stay alive and waste your uber rather than die.

Communication as a medic is very important like I have always said. If you have a mic you are golden. Also use the voice commands. Voice commands are underestimated. For one, you do not need a mic. And two, it appears directly on all screens. Memorize the important ones such as Medic, Incoming, Spy, and most importantly thanks. Get used to where the other ones are located.

Thanks is most important. Why? It motivates the other player. Psychologically it is the best way to create proper effective teamwork. Always thank your players, especially another medic. Good job and nice shot and cheers are also effective for this reason.

If you do NOT have a mic. Get one. You need one to be a successful medic.

This section is to split some of the basic strategies and the more advanced strategies. The following are still very important to understand and should always be applied to the game when playing medic.

Before I introduce later concepts (advanced leadership and communication) I need to introduce prioritizing. This concept is not a weapon but more that of a new mindset every medic needs to get the hang of before becoming a leader. Many players suggest a new player to start off as a medic just because there is no aiming or action involved. Medic is probably the worst class to start off as if you want to end up succeeding. This particular concept of prioritizing is very hard to explain and is very advanced compared to many other online FPS games.

You will find many enemy players will often ignore healing targets and instead focus on trying to kill you first. It is important to realize when you are being singled out and act accordingly -- remember if your heal targets are not under serious fire themselves, you don't necessarily need continue healing them. A good medic can use his own priority target status against enemies by leading them on wild goose chases or fighting back unexpectedly. Advanced medic play is often a question of priorities, and in the vast majority of situations, the number one priority of a medic is to stay alive as long as possible or at least until an Übercharge.

When prioritizing, you decide who to heal, where to go, and what is most important. Not your teamate. If a random heavy has full health, is away from action, and is calling for a doctor, should you listen to him or your first instinct to heal the soldier who needs health but isn't calling for a medic? You make up your own mind. If someone gets mad at you for doing that, well that's there fault.

If you ever watch TV, you may have seen a show called Band of Brothers. Their 6th episode featured the medic in WWII. During action, people constantly called for a medic. Some people had there whole leg blown off and others would have only had a finger blown off, but in the end every injured man was calling for a medic. The medic here had to decide who to attend first. He had to decide based on facts. "Well I didn't attend him because his legs were blown off and he was lucky to not be dead right then and there. I had to attend others that I knew for a fact would not die in an hour and also would not take a long time to help so I could attend more soldiers in the time it would have taken to attend that one."

Prioritizing and organization is the mindset you adopt when playing as the medic. Valve, the developer of TF2, had a phsychologist working for them to give players a realistic approach on playing as the medic and he did a very good job at it.

As I may have said earlier, communication is the medic's primary weapon. Not the syringe gun, not the medigun, but communication. As a medic you will see many things your teamates will not see. If you do not report these, your team will fail. This is a very important fact to know. Every class must communicate and work together as a team to be successful but the medics job at this is the most important. Other classes are sidetracked fighting other enemies and aiming while the medic is simply healing one guy. There is no reason to not use your mic at this time.

The following are generally accepted "competitive TF2 language" which can be applied at all times as a medic.

lit - When an enemy is badly hurt, usually less than 60% health.

Their medic is lit real bad.

Pick - To kill a specific enemy.

Pick the medic on the left quickly so we can advance.

Push - To have some, most, or all of your team advance quickly.

Push to the second point! or All scouts push to the left!

Hold - To have your team stay at a current position, usually to defend a point.

Hold right here. Enemies coming on our left.

Spam - To fire your weapons in a certain direction.

Soldiers and demomen, spam on the left gate, the medic+heavy combo is there.

Retreat - To back off and move back.

We are taking heavy damage. Let's retreat and think this through again.

As a medic, you have the ability to lead others since you see your souroundings better than others. You are able to lead the team to victory or to utter failure. This section will go over how to lead a team to victory correctly in TF2. I won't go over overly advanced techniques (which you may find in my advanced strategy guide on gamefaqs) but I will go over how to use your communication skills to properly cordinate a team to victory.

First off, you know as a medic to call out things that you see. An enemy scout behind your lines, a demo setting up a sticky trap below the bridge, a medic that just died, and more. Now you can say a few more things as a leader. Instead of saying "enemy scout behind us in the corridor" you can now say "enemy scout in the corridor behind us, Sootie the Scout your closest so go get him from behind." You will be amazed when people actually listen to you.

Before doing this you should have significant playtime as a medic obviously. To train yourself, think of plays you could conduct. You might want to practice how to say these plays. A common mistake is talking for too long:

The enemy scout is behind us in the corridor and looks like he is heading to the second control point and wants to backcap it right now. I think a soldier should go over and get him before he... oh he is there right now. Guess we need to retreat back again...

And by the time the soldier gets this command it will not be too late.

This is just the basics to teamwork. A quick tip is to work with the scouts. The scout is the fastest class and can reach unimagineable areas where he should communicate from just like you should. A medic+scout communcation combo is much more powerful than a medic+heavy rambo combo.

Having confidence and using it in TF2 with your mic is very powerful. You can motivate your team and conduct victories so smoothly.

For more about communication, please see my advanced strategy guide on gamefaqs.

Many players jump into TF2 and think it as a run and gun game. This is also known as suiciding but some people just think that is how you play it. However, this is wrong. You need to play smart. You need to strategize with your team. You need to find the right time to do everything so you will live longer and your enemies are dead. With all this talk of playing it smart and staying alive one can get the impression that you should not be aggressive, when this is far from the case. A team needs to be aggressive to win. It needs to be intelligently aggressive however, know when to aggress and when to retreat.

An important component of situational awareness is the ability to recognize when your team has the health advantage in the middle of a spam fight (such as the initial mid fight). Your team good healthwise? Nobody falling back as a result of getting damaged? The enemy team playing extremely conservatively and slowly retreating? This is an opportunity that many teams and players fail to consistently take advantage of. Taking advantage here and going aggressive (such as Soldier rocketjumping onto the enemy crates on Granary mid, or onto the enemy train cart on Badlands mid, or Demoman sticky jumping onto the medic) is key. It's an important aspect of the retreat/push dynamic. If the enemy is at an extreme health disadvantage, is being spammed back, but your team doesn't further aggress but rather holds on to the newly captured territory then you are basically forgiving them.

Don't forgive them - punish them. Keep up the pressure and damage for as long as you conceivably can without overextending yourself. Again, this doesn't mean recklessness, it means a strong sense of situational awareness and the ability to recognize when these moments open themselves.

This strategy requires 2 medics working together and communicating together. Both require the ubersaw as well. One medic ubers the other medic while the medic getting uber uses his ubersaw to gain his own uber to uber the other medic who rinses and repeats the strategy, hopefully creating a successful chain strategy. This is not as successful as causing havoc with a ubered pyro or soldier but it is really funny to watch people run for cover from 2 different medics. This is also pretty advanced and hard to pull of successfully. It's just something I am wanting to mention to show the significance of team plays.

There are many other "serious" or "silly" or "awesome" strategic plays you can think of yourself but you need to learn how to communicate correctly before pulling anything off.

The syringe gun and the blutsauger have 2 advantages and dissadvantages. The syringe gun can crit whereas the blutsauger can not and the blutsauger adds 3HP to the medic on each hit whereas the syringe gun does not. Which one is greater you ask? The blutsauger by far. These guns are last resort weapons when there is nobody around you to heal. When in a situation like this, having a weapon that keeps you at full health is far greater than having a weapon that has a chance of a critical hit.

This is a last resort weapon and is only meant to be used that way. If your teamate is incapable of aiming and you need to move into offense yourself, that is a last resort option. If there are no teamates to heal and you switch to this weapon, that's a last resort situation. If you are being chased with no help and you switch to this gun, that's a last resort situation.

Understand that this weapon fires with an arc and slightly to the right of your crosshair. There isn't much to this weapon and no specific strategies but just keep it at full ammo and learn to aim correctly and you should be fine.

In the above, I introduced the medigun and what it does generally. In this section I will introduce some tips and tricks to make playing the medic much more satisfying and enjoyable.

The Medigun beam can bend around corners. Use this to your advantage to heal your target while being protected from fire. As long as you have a direct line of sight to your patient, you can heal him.

A common mistake that some Medics make is healing only one person. On the battlefront many people are getting wounded and are in need of a Medic to heal them so they can continue their assault or defense uninterrupted. Healing multiple people also benefits you, as you will receive assist credit for your team mates kills, and if your team mates are not at their maximum overheal capacity, you will also fill your ÜberCharge meter faster.

Additionally, you can use your ubercharge on more than one person with the same strategy.

This weapon allows you to give 100% crits to your teamate. All strategies are the same as the medigun. This particular weapon also charges 25% faster. Try to deploy the kritz charge with a stronger class like a soldier. And being around a large group of enemies, hopefully all close together, is a perfect time to deploy the charge. You can be strategic and tell the soldier you are about to deploy a charge and to fire in a specific direction you might predict an enemy to be.

The bonesaw is practically useless compared to the ubersaw. This weapon can crit but the other weapon increases your charge significantly more than just having a random chance to crit. And since some servers do not allow crits at all, the ubersaw is a complete upgrade.

Since you won't be using your melee weapon often, equip this. It is a strong weapon and looks cool too. If you get the chance to hit someone, you might end up having a 100% charge right afterwards. Then you can deploy an uber on your teamate to continue causing havoc against the enemy or if your teamate died, you can use that uber to keep yourself alive. It is a great last resort weapon.

The Medic, along with the Pyro, did not receive a job description and motto in Trailer 2, though the trailer for the canceled Black Box does feature footage of him firing his syringe gun in the beta 2fort (0:36-0:43)

The Medic is the only class not to receive a taunt attack in his own update, however one of his taunts was later altered to heal him. He then received an actual taunt kill in a later update, making Medic the only class with two taunts that have an effect.

If a Medic is killed while having an ÜberCharge prepared but undeployed, his ragdoll will be surrounded by electricity.

The Medic is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who also voiced Travis Touchdown in the Wii action game No More Heroes.

According to one of the Demoman's domination lines, the Medic has a wife. Whether the Demoman is a reliable source of information is a different question entirely.

The Medic is the only class who wears glasses for eyesight reasons.

The Medic, along with the Pyro and the Engineer, are the only classes who have not received any new lines, either in-game or in the Meet the Team videos, since the game was released. The Medic and the Pyro are the only characters who did not receive new voice responses during their class update.

Although he lived through the Second World War, and his bio hints at a dark past, Valve have stated that the Medic is not a former Nazi.

The Medic and the Spy are the only classes with three hats, excluding hats for all classes, they and the Soldier are so far the only classes to obtain a misc item.

The Medic was the first class to receive an update. Originally, players had to unlock every single Medic achievement to receive the Ubersaw; the backlash from this, coupled with the difficulty of some of the Medic achievements, was one of the reasons why the item drop system was introduced and the achievement requirement lowered.

There are two unused voice commands for calling the Medic. These were most likely temporary sounds during testing, or from the canceled version of TF2, where it was much more realistic and military themed.

Out of all the classes, the Medic speaks the most in a language other than English. About half his dialogue is German, although the way he uses his native language often seems out of place, and he sometimes structures sentences oddly (as in instead of saying "Stop losing" he says "Losing is verboten" ('forbidden' in German)). His accent also sometimes sounds odd, and he will occasionally pronounce words incorrectly.

Emblem: A medical cross in a circle as shown in the ASCII Art at the beginning of this guide.

Story: What he lacks in compassion for the sick, respect for human dignity, and any sort of verifiable formal training in medicine, the Medic more than makes up for with a bottomless supply of giant needles and a trembling enthusiasm for plunging them into exposed flesh. Raised in Stuttgart, Germany during an era when the Hippocratic oath had been downgraded to an optional Hippocratic suggestion, the Medic considers healing a generally unintended side effect of satisfying his own morbid curiosity.

I hope you get as much out of this guide as I did writing it. Medic is all about healing, communication, and teamwork. In competitive TF2, the medic is often the leader of the team. Not because he is the best or even the most experienced but because his ability to see things others can not see. If you plan on becoming a great medic in TF2, start learning how to communicate now!

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